Martin Wainstein

Martin studied Biological Sciences at The University of Southern California where he specialized in Astro and Geomicrobiology and later worked on Microbial Fuel Cells at the J. Craig Venter Institute in La Jolla. Martin then returned to Argentina, his home country, to pursue social entrepreneurship and establish businesses within the clean energy sector. As an entrepreneur, Martin has developed projects in renewable energies for the built environment, biofuel projects for large agriculture farms, forest conservation initiatives, marketing and corporate social responsibility campaigns for multinationals, and established a network of sustainable architecture to tackle social innovation projects.

At the University of Melbourne, Martin will channel his broad interests into an interdisciplinary PhD that will seek creative bottom-up social entrepreneurship approaches to decarbonize the power system, including social virtual energy networks using virtual power plants and P2P technology.